1. The Smell
My favorite smell is the smell of bonfire. Because I live in the city and my house is in a tight neighborhood, I am not allowed to have a fire pit in my little backyard. Wood-burned art is the closest that I can get to that earthy, smokey scent that I love. When I am feeling anxious or depressed the wood-burning can be grounding and therapeutic for me. I love the way that it lingers in my hair when I am finished with a project.
2. The Act of Burning
Have you ever lit a note or a photo on fire from your ex or finally got the fire to start while camping with your friends? How do you feel when you set something on fire and watch it burn? There is power in playing with fire when people have warned us all our lives not to. There is power in burning. Pyrography to me is a cathartic experience.
3. Pyrography has shown me a different perspective of drawing
When you draw with pencil and make a mistake you are able to use an eraser to fix it, but when you are drawing with fire there is no turning back unless the burn that you made was light enough that you can sandpaper your mistake out of the wood. By applying different kinds of pressure and temperatures with your pyrography pen, you are able to make your lines or shading darker or lighter in color. Your pen is also attached to a cord which gives you limited mobility. I've learned that turning my wood slab while I burn helps me to get those smooth curves and straight lines.
4. The Mindfulness
All art practices can be meditative, but I find that the art of wood-burning is the ultimate meditation. When you are using a red hot stylus at high temperatures and you are not fully present and aware of where you are or what you are doing, you risk setting yourself or other things around you on fire. When you are concentrating fully on moving your wood-burning pen around on the wood grain, there is no time to think about the stressors or worries happening in your life. It is only you, the pen, and that piece of wood beneath you on the table.
5. The History
Did you know that the earliest surviving pyrography artifacts are from Peru and Roman Britain and date back way before First Century AD? Before electricity, and the invention of the electrified wood burning pen, artisans would use fire heated metal rods of various thickness and point size that were applied to wooden surfaces to create intricate designs.
The art of pyrography started to become very popular in the United States from the 1880s-1920s. Housewives and young adults were encouraged to keep their hands busy and create small craft projects to decorate their homes. During this time period, you would often find designs and patterns in books and magazines. Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery-Ward had kits available to purchase through mail-order catalogs.
Source: Keva Hoffmann Boardman, "Pyrography (wood-burning)," Sophienburg Museum & Archives accessed November 30, 2022, https://sophienburg.com/pyrography-wood-burning/
Featured Blog Image by Liz Capuano